Häusler Contemporary München is pleased to announce its third solo exhibition of Swiss artist Roman Signer. We show a thematic selection of works which all are based on the medium of sand. Besides photographs of Signer’s »time sculptures« we exclusively present a remake of his »Sandinstallation« of 2007 as well as the new sculpture »Hose«.
Sand is the media of temporality. Tracks in the sand are blown away by wind or flattened by water, and the hourglass is one of the most poignant symbols for the passing of time. No wonder, therefore, that Roman Signer (*1938, Appenzell, CH, lives in St.Gall, CH) repeatedly uses the stony grain for his artistic actions. He is one of art’s protagonists who established aspects such as movement, change and fugacity as integral part of sculpture from the 1970s onwards. With his unique »time sculptures«, Signer made an essential contribution to a new understanding of art. Häusler Contemporary München’s thematic exhibition is dedicated to this important aspect of Roman Signer’s oeuvre: for the first time, we focus on works in which the material sand plays a main role.
Aside from photographs depicting several early and recent actions we are delighted to also present Signer’s »Sandinstallation«. For the first time realized by in 2007, the artist now will remake the work exclusively at our gallery. The main protagonists of this piece, a bucket, an umbrella and a backpack are – just like sand – recurring requisites in Signer’s »events«. The installation thus is representative for the work of this major Swiss artist, on the level of imagery as well as on the level of content: Signer repeatedly fathoms the sculptural potential of everyday materials and incidents. In this context, the new work »Hose« of 2015 first appears as a mysterious object. The open door of the mobile wooden cabine reveals the result of an action that took place in advance and that involved sand. The work becomes a unique metaphor for the overall structure of space and time.
The bucket returns in the photograph »Sandsäule« of 1979. In this case, the artist had piled up several bottomless buckets, creating a hollow column that he subsequently filled with sand. The image on view captures the moment when the artist lifted up the topmost bucket. As a consequence the contained sand burst out over the stacking – making visible the change of form. Furthermore, we present »Sand auf Radio« of 1997, a series of four video stills. Looking at the sequence, the viewer can witness the transition of a »figurative« composition to a nearly abstract arrangement.
Our thematic exhibition demonstrates once more the seminal impetus that Signer’s oeuvre had on our contemporary understanding of art. It becomes visible that his works continue to be fresh, innovative and surprising.

In 1911, the young Otto Dix read Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human, a book for “free spirits” from which our exhibition takes its title. The engagement with Nietzsche’s philosophy informs Dix’s entire oeuvre, which takes an unflinching look at humankind.
Haunting portraits and depictions of social life also constitute a major subset of the Lenbachhaus’s “New Objectivity” collection. Starting in July 2014, these holdings will return to the museum’s grand stage. The experiences of the Great War radically changed how people saw the world and their fellow men. Profoundly shaken, many artists of the Weimar Republic focused on a starkly realistic rendition of reality. Their works illustrate the critical gaze with which they observed the world in the period leading up to the outbreak of World War II, a time rich in contrasts and disruptions.
At the heart of new presentation at the Lenbachhaus will be the ‘human condition,’ the vision of the human being. Works of political art, social critique, and verism will contrasted with others that affirmatively capture the spirit of the era. Portraits of the individual and pictures that probe his or her thoughts and sentiments will appear next to images of leading representatives of the era.
Works that have become iconic such as Christian Schad’s Surgery, Rudolf Schlichter’s Portrait of Bertolt Brecht, and Josef Scharl’s Fallen Soldier will once again be on display, together with art by Georg Schrimpf, Wilhelm Heise, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, and Franz Radziwill. The presentation will be rounded out by pictures by Erna Dinklage, Herbert Ploberger, and Helmut Kolle that have not been on public display in a long time. The exhibition will also feature paintings by Karl Hubbuch as well as a selection of drawings by the artist recently donated to the museum. Several newly restored pictures, including Alfred Hawel’s Self-Portrait as Group Picture, will be presented for the very first time. Two major works by the most important representatives of verism, Otto Dix and George Grosz, generously given to the museum on permanent loan, close a gap in our collection.

Authentic cuckoo clocks from the Black Forest, plastic casts of gay couples on their wedding day, gaudily colorful high-heeled tchotchkes, miniature red Porsche 911s, a bright-yellow plastic duck, and a London telephone booth—these and a thousand other small objects will be on display at the Lenbachhaus starting in May 2015. We are delighted to announce that Hans-Peter Feldman’s installation “Laden 1975–2015” has found a new home in our museum.

Two years after the Lenbachhaus reopened its doors to the public, our presentation of “Art after 1945” is undergoing a complete redesign; the new exhibition will be inaugurated on May 19, 2015. In the future, new selections of rarely-seen works from our extensive collections will be unveiled every two years.

In the centre of the new presentation will be the sprawling installation “Laden 1975–2015” by the artist Hans-Peter Feldmann (b. 1941). Feldmann opened a store in central Düsseldorf in 1975, initially dealing mostly in antique technologies: nautical implements, photography equipment, geodesist’s tools, and vintage toys. In the 1980s, he added collectibles and souvenirs, including many articles that were not available anywhere else. The business did so well that Feldmann withdrew from the art world for a decade to devote all his energy to the shop. After forty years, Feldmann is now closing his store to transform the entire undertaking into a work of art that he has decided to entrust to the Lenbachhaus.

“Laden 1975–2015” ties in with the Lenbachhaus’s collection-building tradition in two ways. On the one hand, it is a new chapter in the history of environments and installation art in the Lenbachhaus, a history that begins with works by Joseph Beuys and also includes art by Anna Oppermann, Ilya Kabakov, and the room Gerhard Richter dedicated to Blinky Palermo. On the other hand, Feldmann’s work highlights an important trope: the artist’s private universe or encyclopedia, an anthology of objects or visual impressions of biographical significance. In this regard, Feldmann’s “Laden 1975–2015” adds to an important genre most prominently represented in the Lenbachhaus’s collection of contemporary art by Richter’s “Atlas.”

But the new presentation of art after 1945 will also encompass several other emphases: exemplary selections will sketch the history of painting in Munich from the postwar years to the present, starting with the artist’s association SPUR, an important source of political as well as aesthetic ideas that influenced artists in Munich and internationally. The Lenbachhaus has a major ensemble of works by the group; also on display will be art by SPUR’s contemporaries Jacqueline de Jong and Asger Jorn, who were active in Munich at the time and together with SPUR made the film „I got to have one of those [So ein Ding muss ich auch haben] (director: Albert Mertz), which lends its title to our presentation. The most recent history of painting in Munich will be represented by positions such as Hedwig Eberle’s and Andy Hope 1930’s.

In the past few years, we have made significant new acquisitions, including recent conceptual pieces by Andrea Büttner as well as works by Charlotte Posenenske, two prominent additions to the Lenbachhaus’s portfolio of contemporary art. They will be presented in dialogue with classics of American Concept art such as Robert Morris’s large-format felt piece, which has not been on public display in many years, and rooms devoted to Land art created in Munich that will showcase a recent donation by Hansjörg Voth as well as works Michael Heizer made during a stay in the city in the 1970s.

The new presentation thus also reflects the history of the Lenbachhaus’s collection: we have always sought to compile representative selections from the oeuvres of outstanding artists and introduce audiences to their art by showing cohesive ensembles of works. We also often feature young artists in dialogue with older positions in order to draw connections among our holdings and chart possible avenues of creative engagement.

On occasion of the installation of the major set of works by members of SPUR, which has not been on view in a long time, we have dedicated the second volume of our Edition Lenbachhaus series to the group’s manifestos and programmatic writings, which were seminal to the evolution of art in late-1950s and early-1960s Munich. In addition to the German originals, the book includes the first English translations of these texts, which will facilitate access to SPUR’s art for international audiences; our translators have taken great care to render the revolutionary verve of the originals.

An exhibition produced by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in cooperation with Munich Re.
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